


When you think happiness, I hope you think of me

by Nakeycatstakebaths



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Childhood Friends, Childhood Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, High School Football AU, Mutual Pining, Teachers AU, Tooth Rotting Fluff, dummies to lovers, football coach and cheerleading coach au, one that got away, romantic comedy fanfiction, they're both huge simps in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:34:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28137777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nakeycatstakebaths/pseuds/Nakeycatstakebaths
Summary: Nine years ago, Clarke left Arkadia, Tennessee, in the rearview mirror. But now, she’s back, teaching English at her old high school, coaching the cheerleading team, and it feels like there’s a ghost at every turn. She’d returned with the hopes of keeping her head down, of finding her footing after ten years of treading water. But when her first love, her one that got away, Bellamy Blake, asks her to help him raise money for the football team, there was no way she could say no.Timing is everything, it seems, and maybe, it was finally their time.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 28
Kudos: 128
Collections: The t100 Writers for BLM Initiative





	When you think happiness, I hope you think of me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JenT](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenT/gifts).



> Title, of course, inspired by Queen of my life aka Taylor Swift 
> 
> Written as part of t100writers4blm for @jellamyjake, thank you for trusting me with such a fun prompt! I love a teachers AU! I hope I did it justice. 
> 
> I've been dealing with a heck of a writer's block lately but I'm excited to get through these super fun prompts!

“I need your help,” Bellamy said, knocking gently on the frame of the door before edging inside.

Clarke kept her eyes trained on the essay she was editing, determined to finish grading the worst piece of writing she’d ever read before she let herself get distracted. 

Bellamy could wait. 

“Seriously?” He sighed, taking a seat across from her. She didn’t look up at him, so he pulled an essay from her pile, taking a pen from his pocket before he began grading. 

Clarke wasn’t about to complain. 

They sat in silence, reading through their essays. Every once a while, one of them would wince, reading aloud a particularly bad sentence for the other. 

“Do you want to write a grade on this yourself, or can I just go ahead and give the kid a D?” He asked, clicking his pen as he turned back to the front page. “He didn’t even bother reading the spark notes. Is there a Benji in The Catcher in the Rye?” 

“There’s definitely not,” she sighed, a little disappointed that most of these essays were terrible. Clarke loved The Catcher in the Rye, she’d been hoping the kids would enjoy it as much as she did, but that didn’t seem to be the case. “Make it a D-.” 

Bellamy smirked, marking the grade and sliding the essay into her completed pile. Clarke wrote “C+” on the one she was grading before she finally leaned back in her chair. 

Wordlessly, she raised an eyebrow, urging Bellamy to continue with whatever he came in here to ask. 

But Bellamy just took another essay, propping his pen cap between his teeth. 

“You’re not going to tell me why you came in here?” She asked, taking another essay for herself. 

“I miss grading freshman essays. Humor me a little.” 

“If you want to help me...I won’t complain,” she shrugged, drawing a smiley face next to the only decent introduction she’d read so far. 

Clarke still didn’t know where she stood with Bellamy, what exactly their dynamic was. Sometimes things between them were so good that Clarke wondered if...if there might be a spark. But usually, it vanished just as quickly as it came. 

They’d spent their whole lives in each other’s orbits, sitting somewhere between friends and something...more complicated. 

It was kind of the nature of little towns like theirs. 

In moments like this, she could still see the glimmer of the cocky Bellamy from their high school days, the one who used to wink at the crowd after he scored touchdowns, who always made Clarke feel like her cheeks were permanently red. 

He’d been nothing more than her best friend’s older brother back then, but Clarke couldn’t deny that she spent a fair share of time staring at him across the hall. 

Bellamy looked up at her, smiling softly before turning back to his paper, like he was somehow able to sense her nostalgia. 

She looked away quickly, turning her focus back onto an atrocious misspelling of the name Holden. 

The grading continued until Clarke’s massive stack was barely a few papers thick, and the sunset started filtering into the old classroom windows. 

A light breeze wafted through, punctuating the silence between them and throughout the school. They were probably the only two people here on a Saturday. 

“Do you want to get something to eat? I’m starving,” Bellamy asked, breaking the comfort of their grading bubble. 

Clarke hesitated, taking her time writing the last of her comments on the paper. 

She wanted to, she really did. 

But she was always careful to maintain a level of distance with Bellamy. 

This felt like too much—but the curiosity of what he wanted to ask her...is what tipped her into saying yes. 

***

  
Bellamy hadn’t exactly planned to end up sitting in a diner across from Clarke Griffin. 

This wasn’t an outcome he’d predicted in the million ways that he’d imagined today going. 

And now she had a smudge of milkshake on the corner of her lip, and Bellamy couldn’t think straight. 

He’d had fun with her today, more fun than he’d had in a long time. 

Most people would call it pathetic, spending a weekend afternoon grading mediocre English essays. But Clarke seemed to enjoy it just as much as he did. 

It reminded him of afternoons when they were in high school, when they would both hang back after practice to do their homework in the library. 

They’d never sat together, even though they were the only ones there. But he’d always been aware that she was there. 

Even back then, Clarke was beautiful, and she’d only gotten more so as the years went by. 

Clarke Griffin wasn’t just his little sister's best friend anymore. If he was honest with himself, she’d always been more than his little sister’s best friend. 

But he always tried his best to keep his distance, to maintain a comfortable level of friendship with her. Even though, he wanted nothing more than to tell her how he actually felt. 

“So...do you want to tell me what you need help with? Or would you rather discuss the intricacies of Catcher in the Rye?” Clarke asked as the waitress slid their burgers in front of them. 

Bellamy stole a fry off her plate, basking in the final moment of peace between them before he purposely instigated a fight. 

He really would rather have a conversation about a book. 

But this was time-sensitive. 

“I need you to reallocate some of the cheer budget for the football team,” he said carefully, watching as Clarke’s smile vanished in a matter of seconds. 

“Absolutely not,” she snapped, fixing him with a glare. “Do you know how much work I had to put in to get that money? Nobody takes us seriously.” 

“I know that but—“ 

“But of course, you think the football team is more important. As if you don’t get enough money already…” 

“Clarke.” 

“No, we need new uniforms.” 

Bellarke pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. He knew this would happen, and it was exactly why he’d been dreading this conversation. 

“I understand all of that. But I have a few boys on the team. They’re good. Like Penn State, Bama, Notre Dame, good. But the kind of recruiters for schools like that don’t come to games in rural Tennessee.” 

Clarke looked unimpressed. 

“So, what does that have to do with my cheer budget?” 

“I want to petition for us to play a school up in Nashville. A big one, the kind of football program that draws attention from colleges,” he explained, hoping this would somehow convince her. “But we need money for travel and hotels and fees.” 

She chewed on a fry, eyes fixed on her plate, and Bellamy’s heart sank. It wasn’t going to work. 

“You’re going to need cheerleaders for that...and the band,” Clarke said, dragging a fry through a pool of ketchup. “Were you just planning on marching out the football team alone? No fans? Nobody else?” 

“I uh—didn’t think I would get this far,” he shrugged, pulling a print out of his spreadsheet from his bag. 

He’d spent the past two weeks finding forms, calculating travel costs. Nobody knew yet—he hadn’t wanted to get the boys’ hopes up for nothing. 

Clarke took the sheet, whipping out a pen of her own before she started wildly jotting notes all over the page.

This was the Clarke he’d known since he was a kid, the one who’d squeezed her way into AP classes as a freshman. 

“So you’re going to need three times this amount to get this to work,” she announced, crossing out his math and circling a new, significantly larger number. “I don’t know how much money you think the cheer team has...but it’s not enough for this. And the band budget is even smaller than mine.” 

Bellamy scrubbed a hand over his face, taking the paper to look over the math. He wasn’t great with numbers, but even he could tell that he was in over his head. 

“So you’ll help?” He sighed, combing a hand through his hair. 

“Of course I will,” she said with a careful smile, handing him back the crumpled sheet. 

***

  
When Clarke moved back to Arkadia, she’d been kind of lost. Fresh off a broken relationship and essentially homeless, the only real home she’d ever known was the only place she could go. 

But being back was different than she imagined. 

Sometimes it felt like no time had passed at all. At others, the people she’d once considered family seemed unrecognizable. 

Sitting in a corner pew and watching Raven Reyes and Kyle Wick sprinkle their baby with holy water, was one of those moments. 

The last time Clarke had seen them, they were hot wiring the Vice principal's car. 

But somewhere in the moments since, they’d grown up, gotten married, had a kid, done better than their parents. 

It was surreal and beautiful and kind of painful all at once. 

With her hands in her lap, Clarke watched as the baby burst into tears, and everyone around her smiled as the pastor finished the baptism. 

In the rush of excitement that followed, as the crowd herded into the reception, she found Octavia, with her arms wound around Lincoln’s waist, white sundress blowing in the balmy late summer breeze. 

“Hey there, stranger girl,” Octavia grinned, turning just enough that Clarke caught a glimpse of Bellamy, hands stuffed in his pockets, laughing at something Lincoln said. 

And there was something that felt wonderfully the same, Octavia’s wide, perfect smile and Bellamy’s deep rumbling laugh and the warmth in Clarke’s chest at the sight of them both. For Octavia, something sisterly, but for Bellamy, something that made her stomach fill with butterflies. 

This was her place, there were her people, and they always would be. 

Slowly, their group filled in with Murphy and Emori, forming a circle as they all laughed and talked and cooed over a round-faced, curly-haired John Jr. 

And just as quickly as it came, the sinking feeling from before faded away. 

As they all started to break apart, Bellamy fell into step beside her, the only one other than Clarke who didn’t have a partner to go home with. 

“I talked to Wells about the whole field trip thing by the way,” he said, turning toward her, smile invisible in the fading evening sun, but undoubtedly there all the same. 

Clarke allowed herself to step closer, under the pretense to herself that she wanted to see better but knowing it was the same move she’d employed in high school. 

Her crush on Bellamy was back in full force. All it had taken was a few smiles and a shared plate of fries. 

“I’m glad to hear it,” she replied, and she meant it. These kids needed a chance, the chance that most kids from small rural towns never got. They deserved it. 

They walked from the church to the town square as the sun started to set. Together, their plan's details began to fall together, and it was more straightforward than Clarke expected. 

Before she knew it, all the details were ironed out, everything was falling back into place. 

“It’s getting late, let me...uhh...let me walk you home,” Bellamy offered, bumping the back of his hand against her wrist as they neared the edge of the downtown. 

And normally, Clarke would’ve argued back, but she found that she didn’t want to. 

Sure, Ark was small and safe, even at night. But she didn’t want to leave this moment just yet. 

So she nodded, and let Bellamy follow her to her house. He’d been there before, hundreds of times even. They’d grown up just down the street from each other. Picked her up for cheer practice with Octavia in the backseat, helped her dad build the treehouse in the backyard, cleaned up the remnants of sticky lemonade stands. And later, around the time they moved away, he’d come by himself, sat on the porch with her, and just talked. 

And in a mirror image of his younger self, Bellamy sat himself down on the top step, staring down the road at the house that was once his childhood home. 

“I haven’t been here since we sold the place,” he said quietly, bracing his hands on his knees. “It killed me to do it ya know, lose all of that, all the little marks with O’s height on the door frames, my mom’s paintings. But that’s life, I guess.” 

It was more than Clarke had been expecting, and it caught her off guard. 

She wondered if he’d ever told anyone that before. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing that he’d say to Murphy, and definitely not to Octavia. 

That was always the way she and Bellamy were, zero to one hundred and back down again. 

They just understood each other. 

“There’s something to be said about not living in a shell of what was, though,” she shrugged, sitting heavily beside him. It wasn’t quite a comfort, but she knew that wasn’t what he was looking for anyway. 

Bellamy gave her a crooked smile, gaze softening as he turned to face her. 

“I take it you mean…” he asked, nodding toward Clarke’s slightly faded childhood home. 

She nodded, propping her chin on her knees. It’d been sitting in the back of her mind since she got home, how the house was full of memories turned sour. 

Her parents' room remained a closed door at the end of the hallway, just as it had been ten years ago. 

“We’re quite the pair,” she chuckled, bumping her knees against Bellamy’s and smiling when he bumped back. 

“It’s good to have you back,” Bellamy said, voice barely a murmur, and the smile he gave her left Clarke’s stomach in knots. 

***

  
“You all have ten minutes to shower and change,” Bellamy yelled over his shoulder as he caught a towel being chucked at his head. “Meeting is in Ms. Griffin’s room.” 

As he closed the door to the locker room, Bellamy could hear the chatter break out among the boys. It was nice to see them excited about something, and for once, it felt like things might actually go according to plan. 

Still in his practice clothes, he made his way to Clarke’s room. She was already at the board, writing an extensive checklist in thick blue marker, with a crowd of perfectly groomed, silent cheerleaders watching with rapt attention. 

It was quite the contrast from the locker room he’d just exited. 

Most of the girls had been in one of his classes, and they all greeted him with friendly smiles and slightly sly looks between him and Clarke. 

“Hi,” Clarke beamed, stepping back from the board so she could show him her handiwork. 

In thick block letters, “The Road to Nashville,” was written at the top of the board. 

“Cute,” he smirked, taking the marker to add some points he’d been working on.

The boys filed in as they filled out the rest of the plan, and the room started buzzing as the kids talked amongst themselves. 

A few minutes later, there was a light tap on Bellamy’s shoulder. 

“Okay, coach, so we’ve decided that me and Charlotte are going to be the captains of this,” Jordan Green said proudly, swinging his arm around the shoulders of a taller, prim, blonde girl. 

The girl nodded and turned an iPad to display an impressively detailed outline to go along with Clarke’s original plan. 

“So this is what de ja vu feels like,” Clarke murmured, low enough that only Bellamy could hear as they watched their two captains corral the room. 

He had to admit, the resemblance was uncanny. 

“Well, this just means less work for us,” He shrugged, gesturing for Clarke to sit beside him on the desk as they watched the kids run through their ideas. 

***

  
"You want to do what?" Bellamy groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face as he looked between Jordan and Charlotte.

  
"A people auction," Jordan said again, slower this time, as if that provided anything resembling context to this situation.

  
Clarke pressed a thumb to her temple, wondering why exactly they'd thought that leaving the fundraising options up to the kids was a good idea.

  
"You realize how this sounds, right?" she explained gently, hoping that they would get her point. "Because any way you spin it...it sounds bad."  
There was a beat of silence before Charlotte's eyebrows flew to her hairline.

  
"Oh my God...no, that—" she stammered, eyes widening when she picked up on the implication. "We were thinking like, win a dance lesson with Alyssa or Jake can teach someone how to throw a football or win a date with your crush."

"So a talent auction," Bellamy supplied, leaning forward on his elbows. "And a dating auction."

  
"Yeah," Jordan said weakly, flipping through his notebook. "But maybe this wasn't as good of an idea as we thought it would be."

  
Another dull silence followed, settling in the air as Charlotte's cheeks burned a faint pink.

  
"We also considered a car wash...but uh—if we're worried about optics, I think a cheerleaders and football players car wash might be ill-advised," she said with a wry smile, catching Clarke's eye just as she started to giggle.

  
Bellamy joined in on the laughter, and it cut the tension in the room just enough to ease the conversation. They were all on edge, and these ideas were terrible, but being annoyed about it wouldn't accomplish anything.

  
"Do you remember that fundraiser we did in high school, for the prom venue?" he asked Clarke, shifting on his elbow so he could see her.  
They didn't talk about high school often, but there was a faint hint of a smile on her lips as she laughed once more.

  
"So, when we were kids, Mr. Jordan's dad used to own a landscaping business, and for the prom fundraiser, he suggested we sell mulch," Clarke explained, pausing to laugh halfway through. Bellamy was grateful she didn't seem annoyed that he brought it up.

  
"Which of course seemed like a great idea in concept, but in practice, it was a bunch of scraggly high schoolers dragging around giant bags of manure and knocking on people's doors," he continued. "We made a lot of money because we looked so pathetic, and we smelled so bad."

  
"Mr. Blake's sister spilled an entire bag of it in the backseat of his brand new truck, if I remember correctly," Clarke added, bumping her elbow against his. "Rumor has it that when he turns his heat on, you can still smell the cow poop."

"What Ms. Griffin is leaving out, is that the bag broke because she decided to sit on it while we were driving home from a bonfire."

  
They teased each other back and forth, sinking into the familiar memory—and once again, Bellamy's mind drifted back to that time. Those nights they'd spent driving with the windows down, stereo blaring, with Murphy in the passenger seat, Octavia and Clarke in the back. Sometimes, when he didn't think she was looking, he would glance back in the rearview mirror, catching sight of her with her head tipped back, enjoying the breeze as she sang along to whatever song Octavia was obsessed with that week.

  
He'd always wondered what would've happened if they'd had more time, if Clarke hadn't left without saying goodbye.

  
The ache was still there, of the empty seat in the car, the one that never really felt like it could belong to anyone else.

  
It all felt so far away now, and thinking about it made him feel impossibly old.

  
"So you guys really knew each other back then, huh?" Jordan asked, sitting on a nearby table. “I always thought my mom and dad were exaggerating about their glory days.” 

  
"Of course they did. That's how this town works," Charlotte said, rolling her eyes. "Half the people in that story are teachers at this school now, and the other half work at the hospital."

  
Bellamy snorted, easing himself out of the memory. He hated to admit it, but she had a point. It was why they were doing this in the first place. He wanted to give these kids a chance to leave, to explore their talents somewhere bigger.

  
Some of them would come back—just like Clarke had, but they deserved to at least have the option not to. 

  
***

Clarke scooped a generous helping of popcorn into a container, sliding it across the plastic table to Murphy and Emori.

"This is a major blast from the past,” Murphy snickered, eyes flicking over to where Bellamy was filling small styrofoam cups with hot chocolate.

Emori raised an eyebrow, looking between the three of them, with the same knowing look she always had as she fed their son a small piece of popcorn.

"You cried during that showing of Pride and Prejudice, and that's a fact," Bellamy said in return, handing them two slightly messy cups.

Murphy opened his mouth to deny it, but they all knew that it would've been a lie.

"It's okay. You're in touch with your emotions. It's very sexy," Emori assured, burying her laugh in the tangle of the baby's curls.

Murphy scowled, placing his body in front of John Jr. before he flipped Bellamy and Clarke off behind his back.

"Man, I missed this," Clarke laughed, bumping her shoulder against Bellamy's as they waved goodbye to their friends.

She allowed herself a beat to linger, enjoying the warm press of his arm against hers, the lingering heat that his touch left on her skin, and a moment that made her feel comforted and nostalgic.

It was staggeringly easy to sink back into the familiarity of it all, running school events with Bellamy, teasing Murphy, having coffee with Octavia, driving down the dirt roads at sunset with her windows rolled down.

In some ways, it felt like no time had passed at all.

She'd spent so many movie nights in high school perched in the bed of Bellamy's pick-up truck, sandwiched between the Blake siblings. It felt like the most exciting thing in the world back then, the brush of Bellamy's arm draped casually behind her, the sharp musk of his cologne, the way his lip caught between his teeth as he focused on the movie and pretended that he wasn't enjoying himself. Sometimes they'd shared a giant bucket of popcorn between themselves, and his fingers would brush hers by accident.

Something about Bellamy had always made Clarke feel like she couldn't quite catch her breath.

And now, those same feelings came roaring back, hitting her at full force as he smiled at her over his shoulder and returned to the hot chocolate station.

Part of her had always wondered whether Bellamy had felt the same way about her, whether he had timed his reaches as carefully as she'd planned hers. Even once she moved away, he always held a small corner of her mind.

Clarke hoped when she returned that he would still be here, that he would be just as perfect as she remembered.

But she never anticipated that they would be planning fundraisers together, eating dinner over spreadsheets, grading together, that they would pick up exactly where they left off, and it would be even more overwhelming than it had been when she was sixteen.

"Miss. Griffin!" a voice called, shaking her out of her thoughts. Probably for the best, now was not the time for imagining what it would feel like to kiss Bellamy Blake.

A moment later, Charlotte came running up to the table, cheeks flushed and smile wide as she waved an envelope in the air.

"Almost two thousand dollars," Jordan yelled, interrupting Charlotte before she had the chance to tell them the good news.

Clarke almost dropped the popcorn container she was holding in shock. It was double what they had been anticipating, and the number didn't even include what they'd made off concessions.

"Did I just hear someone say, two thousand dollars?!" Bellamy exclaimed, rounding the table to thump Jordan on the back.

"I guess having nothing to do around here finally worked in our favor," Charlotte beamed, handing the envelope to Clarke. "A lot of the older people were talking about how nice it was to have the event back too."

"We're going to ignore the part where you just called us both old," Clarke chuckled, squeezing the younger girl's hand.

This put them halfway toward their goal.

***

The blare of the marching band filled the town square, the trees draped in red and white ribbon, the air laced with a pleasant fall chill as the town buzzed with excitement. Arkadia wasn't known for much, with its modest downtown and tractor lined streets, but the homecoming carnival drew crowds from all over the county.

"Want to take your turn? For old time's sake?" Clarke giggled, balanced a pie tin full of whipped cream in her palm before turning toward Bellamy.

He took a step back, holding both his hands in the air like the memory of having plate after plate of whipped cream pushed into his face came flooding back. It was an old tradition, one that went back to when their grandparents were in high school—Pie-a-football player, a town favorite, and dreaded by every member of the team.

But it was for a good cause, and the money would help them afford the bus fee they needed to get to Nashville.

And the fact that he wasn't the one getting pie-d anymore, was definitely a bonus.

Clarke smirked, lowering the pie tin before she scooped out a small finger of whipped cream and smeared it across Bellamy's cheek.

"Couldn't resist," she murmured as she stepped back, and before she turned, he caught a glimpse of her licking the remainder off her finger.

Without a doubt, spending this much time with a girl he'd been in love with since he was fifteen, would be his undoing. Before he could think too much about it, Bellamy took a step forward, reached into the tin, and smeared a streak of whipped cream onto Clarke's face in return.

"Fair is fair," he said cheekily, winking at her as she stared back at him in surprise.

"Oh, now, this is personal," she exclaimed, lunging toward his, tin poised to hit him, but he caught her around the middle, laughing as they spun in circles, spreading whipped cream all over themselves and the asphalt.

Bellamy kept his arms around her as their laughter died down, lowering Clarke back onto the ground. They were both sufficiently covered in white foam, and he reached to remove a fleck that caught itself in her hair.

They'd stopped moving, but his heart was still racing, overwhelmed by the rush of feelings that returned for Clarke.

A long time ago, they stood in this exact spot, and she pushed the tin of whipped cream in his face, before carefully helping him wipe it off. Afterward, they spent the whole evening together, watching the lights illuminate, sharing a tin of popcorn. It was the first time that Bellamy allowed himself to consider what would happen if he let himself act on his feelings for Clarke. He'd longed to wrap an arm around her shoulders, to offer her his jacket once the sun slipped away. That was the night he'd decided he wanted to ask her to the dance, that he didn't want to spend his last homecoming with anyone else. But of course, they'd gotten interrupted before he had the chance—and Clarke and her mom left town the next day.

For years, Bellamy wondered what would've happened if he'd been bolder that night, if he'd just had the courage to tell Clarke the truth.

Maybe it wouldn't have changed anything, she would've left town whether or not she knew he loved her, but at least then...she would've known.

He'd worried when she came back that it was too late, that she'd returned with a husband that would pop out at any moment. But right now, with a thick layer of whipped cream in Bellamy's hair and his hands intertwined with Clarke's, it felt like they might actually have a shot at the second chance.

There was a faint click that shook them out of the moment, and Jasper smiled sheepishly at them as he lowered his camera.

"It's for the newspaper," he shrugged, waving casually as he moved on to take a picture of Hope Diyoza smashing a pie in Jordan's face.

The tension between them vanished as quickly as it came, and they shifted back to managing the booth, both slightly sticky from the residual whipped cream.

But Bellamy couldn't help glancing over at her a few times while they were taking wrinkled dollar bills, watching out of the corner of her eye as she chuckled at the town antics.

Behind them, Jordan sat on the floor, and Hope Diyoza knelt in front of him, carefully wiping the whipped cream out of his hair.

Life really was cyclical.

***

"I take it that you've seen this?" Octavia asked, coming up behind Clarke with a newspaper and coffee in hand.

Clarke shook her head, continuing her path back to the high school as Octavia fell into step beside her.

"It's been a crazy day. I haven't had time to read it," Clarke shrugged, taking the offered coffee gratefully.

"I think you should take a look," Octavia continued, pressing a copy of the Arkadia Gazette into her friend's hand.

Clarke scanned the paper, looking over an article about the carnival and a small write up about the town history.

And then she reached the bottom of the page, slowing to a stop as she took in the cluster of photos.

One was a picture from last Saturday, with Bellamy's arms around her waist and whipped cream smeared across both their cheeks. The photo beside it was older, from Clarke's very last homecoming carnival in Arkadia, one that she'd almost completely forgotten about. It was of her and Bellamy too, but they were younger, softer around the cheeks and brighter in the eyes. He was smiling down at her as she wiped his cheek with her thumb, hand braced gently on her bicep.

Her heart ached at the sight of it. Even in blurry black and white, she could see the adoration in her own eyes. Slowly, the memory came back to her. This photo was from the night that she'd finally allowed herself to wonder whether Bellamy liked her back.

But just as quickly as the realization came, it all got ripped away.

Her mom had decided that night that they were done with Arkadia forever, that there was nothing left for them in the town, and packed up their entire life in a matter of hours.

As an adult, Clarke understood it was something resembling a mental breakdown. Still, at the time, she'd thought that her mom was deliberately trying to ruin her life.

She'd been left with a Bellamy shaped hole in her heart since the moment she saw Arkadia disappearing in a rearview window.

And for the first time, printed in smudged ink in their rinky dinky town newspaper, was a shimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, she and Bellamy would be able to pick up where they left off.

"There's one more," Octavia said quietly, taking the paper back and turning the page.

The photo she revealed was the one that finally pushed Clarke over the edge.

Sitting on a bale of hay, a wispy haired, gap-toothed kindergarten Clarke had an arm hugged tightly around an equally happy Octavia. On her other side sat Raven Reyes, with her head tipped back in a laugh, and Murphy, who was trying to reach far enough to hug them all at once. In the corner of the photo stood Clarke's dad, with a hand braced on Bellamy's shoulder. Bellamy, in turn, looked like he was holding Clarke up and away from falling off the bale and onto the concrete. A small blur in the corner of the picture was recognizably Aurora Blake, probably on her way to remove something out of toddler Octavia's mouth.

It was too much, seeing her father, young and alive, smiling, barely older than Clarke was now and the blur of an equally young Aurora Blake, both memorialized in cheap newsprint. And then there was the careful way Bellamy was holding her up, the smile that resembled his adult one so closely it was staggering, more focused on ensuring Clarke didn't fall, than he was on the camera.

Even at six years old, he'd been looking out for her, and from the look on his face, Clarke's dad hadn't missed the gesture either.

"Fuck," Clarke murmured, exhaling heavily as she moved to sit on a bench, her haste from earlier wholly forgotten.

"I know," Octavia said, sitting beside her, wrapping an arm around Clarke's shoulders once again.

This photo was both an embodiment of why Clarke came back here, but it was also the reason it felt like there was a ghost at every turn.

Her heart broke for the joy in the photo, for two people who never got the chance to see their kids grow up, and the loss and sorrow that those smiling kids would come to face.

It was truly what could've been.

"Who do you think we would be if the fire never happened?" Clarke asked, scrubbing a hand over her face as she let the newspaper fall into her lap. "If my mom never...took me away from here."

It was a question she'd been asking herself a lot lately, but one she hadn't wanted to address by herself.

Having Octavia here made it feel safer in a way. She understood.

There was a long silence as Octavia sipped her coffee, staring out into the expanse of the bustling town square, still decorated from the weekend.

"I used to think we would be happier, that life would've been easier that way. And undoubtedly it would've been easier," she said carefully, face solemn. "But it shaped so much of who we are...I think we would be unrecognizable."

Clarke hummed in agreement. She'd always thought the same thing. Like it or not, losing both her parents in different, but equally tragic ways, was the foundation of who she turned out to be.

"I'm really glad you're home," Octavia continued, squeezing Clarke's shoulders and hugging her tightly from the side, the way she used to when they were kids.

Hugging her friend back, Clarke felt a rush of fondness, of family. For the first time in a long time, she had people to lean on again, and it felt good.

***

  
Clarke took Bellamy's offered hand as they climbed through the junkyard, trailed by a very irritated Charlotte and a pack of football players.

Clarke took Bellamy's offered hand as they climbed through the junkyard, trailed by a very irritated Charlotte and a pack of football players.

This—was the beginning of a terrible idea, but she had to admit, it was kind of genius.

"Here!" one of the boys called, jogging ahead of the group to smack the hood of a rusted old Toyota with peeling red paint. "My dad said it's a total junker, so we can have it for free."

Bellamy rubbed the back of his neck as he walked a slow circle around the car, before raising a single eyebrow at Clarke.

He didn't need to speak for her to know what he was asking her.

Were they actually going to do this?

"I talked to Lincoln about it, and he said that if everyone has their parents sign a liability waiver, it should be fine!" another boy added in with what seemed like an attempt at a reassuring smile.

"And Wick said we could use the empty field behind the garage," Charlotte sighed, clearly resigned to the idea. She'd been outnumbered in her protests not only by the entire football team but by most of the cheerleaders as well.

Clarke kicked one of the tires, peeking through the windows of the dilapidated car.

"Okay, explain this to us one more time," Bellamy said, looking between Jordan and Charlotte.

"Christopher's uncle is going to remove the glass from the windows and move the car to the field for us. Then, Jordan and I get the liability waivers from Lincoln. Everyone signs one when they pay the admission fee. It's fifteen dollars for one hit and twenty for three hits with the sledgehammers that we're borrowing from Mr. Blake. Uncle Jasper said he would take any leftover scraps for metalworking, so we don't have to worry about clean-up," Jordan recited carefully, ensuring that he was covering all his bases at each step.

With a faint smile, Bellamy turned to Clarke, and she nodded. As much as this whole thing was completely ridiculous, she kind of loved it.

"You covered all your bases. I don't see a good reason why we shouldn't do it," she grinned, taking a step back as the boys whooped and cheered, and one of them spun Charlotte around in a circle.

From the shock value alone and the high cost of admission, this would be the perfect way to reach their fundraising goal with just enough time to order new cheerleading uniforms for the girls.

"People are going to be talking about this for the next ten years," Bellamy chuckled as the kids raced back to their cars, already buzzing with excitement about their next steps.

"The two of us making a scene? Never," she teased, feigning surprise and clutching her chest.

Bellamy snorted, almost tripping over a rusty tin can as they made their way out of the town junkyard.

On reflex, Clarke caught the back of his shirt. She suddenly was reminded of the photo Octavia had shown her the previous afternoon.

There was something to be said about having someone who had your back as solidly as you had theirs.

But as much as she wanted to lean into it—she knew she shouldn't. After the break-up, all the moves, all the uncertainty, things were finally good. Bellamy was her one that got away, and even though every nerve in Clarke's body was telling her this was her chance to get him back, the logic at hand said that they were better off as friends.

They'd been friends their entire lives. There was no reason to go changing things now.

Easier said than done.

With his flannel unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and messy curls already falling back into his face, Clarke thought she might die when Bellamy rounded his truck to open her door for her.

Another gesture that she wasn't particularly keen on, but for him, she would make an exception.

The truck didn't help her cause either.

Her heart still fluttered at the memory of Bellamy's eyes finding hers in the rearview mirror, the white glint of his smile when he caught her gaze.

Back then, she'd held onto those moments, read far too deeply into them when she was alone and staring up at her ceiling.

They felt special, like a little secret between the two of them.

But in all those years together, she'd never sat in the front seat. There was always another person there to crank the radio, to draw Bellamy's attention away from their glances, to fill the car with conversations steered away from the one thing Clarke desperately wanted to avoid but also was continually dying to talk about.

Now though, they were alone, and it was Clarke's turn to play her favorite songs on the radio and no barriers in their conversation.

Her high school self would have died on the spot, but her twenty-six-year-old self had a sinking feeling that this would make her plight to be friends a hell of a lot harder.

Just to have something to do, she dug through the binder of CDs in the center console, focusing on the worn disc art instead of Bellamy's arm propped on the back of her seat as he tried to maneuver the car out of the tight driveway.

Finally, she found the one she'd been looking for.

The Taylor Swift debut album, in all its bright blue, guitar playing, curly blonde haired glory. She and Octavia had played this disc over and over, with their heads sticking out of the backseat windows. Eventually, they played it so often that even Bellamy and Murphy knew all the words to Picture to Burn.

 _"When you think Tim McGraw, I hope you think my favorite song..."_ the music twanged, floating through the evening air and leaving a comforting layer of nostalgia on Clarke's skin.

"When you think happiness, I hope you think that little black dress," Bellamy hummed along, voice a deep, warm rumble that sent shivers down her spine.

And all her resolve melted.

With a faint smile, Clarke curled up in the worn leather seat, leaning her head back against the bench as she sang along with him.

She played with a loose thread on the knee of her jeans, suddenly feeling like a giddy, nervous teenager while they drove down the winding country roads.

He'd taken the long way home, definitely not on accident—and it made Clarke feel bold.

Just as Our Song began floating through the speakers, she found herself suggesting they get Freezy Guy.

"I love the way your brain works," Bellamy said, taking a sharp right turn to redirect them to a local ice cream shop.

Within the length of the song, they'd pulled into the vintage style drive-through and placed their order with one of Bellamy's former students.

"Two clown cones," the girl said with an amused smile, handing two comically large bowls through the car window.

The ice cream was exactly the same as it had been when they were kids, just like everything else in the town. Clarke's dad had always referred to it as a monstrosity, but ordered it for her after every single football game, as was their tradition. It reminded her of sticky summers in her junior cheerleading uniform and cool fall evenings curled in the backseat of this truck with the heat blasting and all the moments and memories in between.

Two scoops of cake batter ice cream, decorated with a frosting smiley face and curly red frosting hair. A cone acted as a clown hat, while a bed of sprinkles served as the "outfit."

"Nothing will ever, in the entire world, taste better than this," Clarke beamed, gathering a healthy scoop of frosting, ice cream, and sprinkles to build the perfect bite.

"All those years at that fancy school in Boston, and the best thing you've ever eaten is ice cream with leftover birthday frosting on it?" Bellamy teased, but there was a hint of something else there, something that she couldn't place.

He'd kept track of her, he knew she'd gone to college in Boston, and something about that made her feel warm inside.

He hadn't forgotten about her either.

But it also meant that he knew enough about her life after she left Arkadia, but he didn't know the whole story.

"Boston was—hell, to put it lightly," she shrugged, hoping the tension didn't show in her voice. "I would take day-old curly fries and clown shaped ice cream any day."

Bellamy didn't answer, just dragged his spoon through the sea of sprinkles, and dipping it lightly in the ice cream.

"Things here were never the same after you left. It always helped to know you were happy out there but—"

"But that wasn't the case," she finished, reaching to take a bit from his bowl even though she still had plenty left of her own. "I don't know...I expected things to get better too..."

Clarke trailed off, suddenly caught in the memories of the other life she'd lived, the one that felt distant and non-existent now. Her goal had been to leave it behind and never look back, to never think or talk about it again. But something about this conversation made her want to open up the wounds she'd worked so hard to heal. Her mind drifted back to the conversation on her front porch, about ghosts. Maybe she'd had it wrong. This town wasn't full of ghosts. She was. She'd worked so hard to leave her past behind, first in Boston, now here, that she didn't know who she was in the context of this new life.

And perhaps it was time to stop running.

"You don't have to talk about it if—"

But she didn't take the bait. Instead, she kept going.

"You know, Charlotte reminds me so much of us at that age. She's so frustrated with the smallness of this place, and it's so obvious she can't wait to run away. I thought that leaving was what I wanted too, until it came to actually packing my stuff up and going. " she said, words coming out all at once, in a jumble. "Boston was cold and rainy—and my mom went completely off the rails. I tried to run away for college, but her boyfriend would call me and tell me about how badly she was doing, how he was checking her into another facility. It was just easier to build a wall and try to find my own place, but apparently, I was trash at that because I picked an asshole of a boyfriend and a career path that made me miserable."

Placing his ice cream cup, with a half soggy cone on the dashboard, Bellamy edged closer. Not romantically or sexually, but in the protective and comforting way, Clarke had come to associate with him.

"But then I lost her, actually lost her, not just lost track of her, and I realized that something needed to change," she sighed, trying to keep the tears from rolling down her cheeks. "So I broke up with Finn, and I sold all my stuff, and I came back to the only place where I've ever been happy."

Without realizing it, Clarke found herself fully nestled in Bellamy's arms, the warmth of his skin grounding her as she talked through something she'd never let herself say out loud.

"So, are you happy?" Bellamy asked, voice barely a breath above a whisper, his chin propped on the top of her head.

There were so many things she could say, the opening of a lifetime for her to confess that he was the one who made her the happiest, that he always had been.

But instead, she just nodded, wrapping her arms around his waist and hugging him as tightly as she could manage.

As she listened to the thud of Bellamy's heartbeat, she thought back to that rainy fall night when she'd watched Arkadia disappear in the rearview mirror.

She'd longed to leave a note for him, confessing her feelings, telling him how much he meant to her. One for Octavia, too, for the only real best friend she'd ever known.

But there wasn't enough time, and sometimes she wondered whether they knew how much they meant to her.

  
***

  
"What's all this?" Octavia chuckled, leaning across the desk and eying the massive bag of Italian food that Clarke placed in front of her.

  
"I was hoping you'd have lunch with me?" Clarke asked with a smile, tilting her head toward the town square, buzzing with the lunch rush.  
With a slightly skeptical raised eyebrow, Octavia took the bag and peeked inside.

  
"Well, I am my own boss," she grinned, swinging an arm around Clarke's shoulders. "And mid-day carbs wait for nobody."

  
After they'd settled on a nearby picnic table and spread out what was admittedly a massive amount of food, Octavia finally voiced her surprise.

  
"So I'm going to guess that you didn't bring me a five-course meal on a school day just because you missed me," she said, taking a large bite out of a breadstick as she eyed her friend.

  
Clarke shrugged, chewing on her straw and turning her head to watch people stroll by. 

“I’ve just been thinking a lot lately and--you’re my best friend,” she said after a beat, letting herself embrace the discomfort in being vulnerable. “And I don’t appreciate you enough, but I should.” 

Octavia chewed quietly for a moment, studying Clarke’s face as if it held a secret that she didn’t quite understand. 

“I love you, you know that. But I have a feeling this has something to do with why Bellamy has been playing a Taylor Swift album from 2007 in his car for the past week. So spill,” she said, blunt and to the point, typical. 

And, of course, Octavia would pick up on everything without missing a beat. 

But in truth, this wasn’t about Bellamy. This was about being emotionally available and vulnerable with the people she loved. 

Okay, maybe it was a little bit about Bellamy--but it was about Octavia too. 

“I’m serious! That picture of us from when we were kids really made me think, we’re family. And I know I’ve been gone a long time, but I want to be here for you, and I want to be a part of this town again.” 

“You’re already a part of this town. Even when people leave, they’re still family. We lost the people we loved most together, Clarke. A few years of silence doesn’t change that.” 

“I missed so--” 

“Yeah, you missed a lot. But you’re here now, and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life, and I’m glad I get to have you here as part of it. This lunch is great, but it's beyond unnecessary. I think you’re focusing on communicating with the wrong person,” Octavia shrugged, twirling a fork full of spaghetti as she spoke. 

And well, nobody knew Bellamy better than Octavia...so maybe she had a point. 

“As much as I love Picture to Burn and Tim McGraw, the Taylor Swift is starting to wear on me.” 

At this, they both laughed, and Clarke relaxed marginally. She’d been bracing herself for at least a little bit of shit from O, so this was a welcome surprise. 

It truly felt like no time had passed at all as they sat eating their extravagant lunch and gossiped about the town ongoings. The topic of Bellamy never came up, and Clarke preferred it that way. She still wasn’t entirely sure that they were meant to be anything other than friends. 

But maybe they did need to talk. 

***

  
Bellamy counted the equipment bags one last time, in disbelief that they’d managed to raise enough money for the trip, new cheerleading uniforms, new shoulder pads, and shoes for the band. 

They would be leaving for Nashville in two weeks, and there was a lot to do before then. 

So much, in fact, that Bellamy felt like he hadn’t seen Clarke in days. 

And he missed her. 

It blew his mind after so many years apart, that he’d become so attached to having her around in such a short time. 

This wasn’t what he’d been expecting when she came back. In fact, it had caught him off guard how upset he was with her still. It wasn’t fair, and it didn’t make sense, but for years he’d resented the way that she vanished into thin air, not quite understanding at eighteen years old that she didn’t have a choice. They’d both already lost so much, and then, he lost her too. 

He’d been jealous, seeing her life unfold in bright arrays of Boston fall foliage, packed full of women with darkly lined eyes and men with hair swept across their foreheads. 

It was hard not to feel left behind when he was at community college, and Clarke seemed to have grown beyond his world. 

But it would seem that everything isn’t always as it is on the surface and her life wasn’t what he’d imagined it had been. While he’d been sitting in Arkadia, watching her glamour from afar, she’d been thinking about their sleepy hometown.

Absently, he wondered whether she’d ever looked through Octavia’s Instagram, seen the pictures from the homecoming carnivals and ice skating contests she’d missed, whether she saw the Facebook posts when he’d won prom king alongside Gina. 

It almost made him feel guilty to think about now, knowing what she was going through. But they’d all been going through a lot back then. On the surface, he was sure he’d seemed happy too, even though the world was constantly crumbling under his feet. 

For years, it’d been one tragedy after another, his mom, then Gina, then they lost the house, and he’d had to come home from school to manage it all. 

But things were different now, arguably the best they’d ever been, and at least some of that was due to Clarke’s return. 

Nine years ago, it wasn’t their time, maybe it would never be their time, but he was grateful to have her back. 

With a click, he turned off the locker room lights, stepping into the empty hallway, the lights already dimmed and the floors wiped down for a new day. 

It wasn’t often that Bellamy was acutely aware that he’d once walked these halls as a student, but lately, the past felt like it was at the forefront of his mind. But where there was once misplaced anger and the sting of a simpleness he would never get back, there was an edge of warmth. A nostalgia for evenings in his truck, movie nights in the town square, clown cones, and glances in the rearview mirror, all things that in the frame of life, he’d forgotten. 

“Hey stranger,” Clarke said softly, barely looking up from the essays she was grading when he stepped into her classroom. 

She’d decorated since the last time he’d been in here, strung Christmas lights along the ceiling, hung posters with covers of great books on the walls, and taped quotes from those same books in the spaces between. 

Just as he’d done almost a month ago, Bellamy pulled up a chair and sat across from her, but this time he took his own papers from his bag and started grading. 

Companionable silence wasn’t something that most people understood. Octavia felt uncomfortable with silence, always tried to fill it with jokes or stories or laughter. It just wasn’t in her nature. But Clarke just continued working, looking up every once, the weight of her gaze burning into his skin before she looked away again. 

Bellamy decided he could spend his entire life in this moment, in this comfortable silence, surrounded by the glow of Christmas lights and the scratch of a pen against paper. He got so lost in the moment that the next time he looked up, it was pitch black outside. 

“I think it’s the perfect night for a cheeseburger. What do you think?” Clarke asked, clicking her pen against her lip in a way that made his brain short circuit.

Unsure at the state of his voice, Bellamy nodded, packing up his things as he followed her back out of the school. 

Their evening passed unremarkably, in discussions of booking hotel rooms and how to keep the kids under control during an overnight trip, over a shared plate of fries. 

But that was kind of the beauty in it. That was what he’d always loved most about spending time with Clarke. Whether they were cleaning out a garage, re-varnishing a table for his mom, grading papers, or simply existing in the same space, Bellamy never felt like he had to try to be anything he wasn’t, that he ever had to be anyone other than himself. 

And--the feeling was always there, but it was becoming harder and harder to ignore. 

He loved her, and honestly, Bellamy wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle the idea of her never knowing the truth. 

***

  
“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” Murphy groaned, holding a travel mug to his chest as he leaned against the side of the bus. 

“You’re loving every second of it,” Monty snorted, flicking Murphy on the back of the head as he joined their small circle. “This is what you get for shirking field trip duty for five years.” 

“Remember when Murphy started a small fire at the back of the bus in eighth grade?” Harper added, coming up behind Monty. “Let hope for a repeat for the sake of irony.” 

Bellamy feigned a groan, knocking his forehead against Clarke’s shoulder for dramatic effect as he scolded their friends about not encouraging the kids to repeat their crap. 

“They didn’t call us the delinquents for nothing,” Murphy shrugged, winking over his shoulder before he turned to board one of the waiting busses. 

“Nobody called us that other than you,” Clarke called after him, but he’d already boarded the yellow bus by then. 

Annoying as Murphy could be, there was something about being back with this group, the thrill of excitement palatable around them that left her with deep-seated joy. 

“C’mon,” she said after a beat, feeling bold as she grabbed Bellamy’s wrist and led him toward a mixed bus of cheerleaders and football players. “We have chaperoning to do.” 

He followed her, taking the seat across the aisle and settling into the narrow green bench. 

Clarke’s first instinct was to dive into logistics, planning was where she felt most comfortable, but she knew that there wasn’t a point. They’d been over the plan at least a million times. There was no need to go over it again. 

Instead, she took out her book, just in time to see that Bellamy was reading a book of his own. 

He chuckled when he looked over and caught sight of hers, shifting to the edge of the bench. Like her own, his book was full of tabs and folded pages, and she wondered whether he’d written little notes with his thoughts in it alongside his teaching points. 

Suddenly, all she could think about was how easily their lives fit together, how much of her world and Bellamy’s seemed to overlap. 

It was so easy to fit this into her fantasy of coming home together, of grading papers, and watching Netflix, reading together by her dad’s old fireplace, building things in the garage. 

The more she got to know this new, adult version of Bellamy, the more she realized that even if they’d grown into themselves hundreds of miles apart, he still understood her on a level that nobody else ever had. 

“I can’t believe you’re making those kids read The Goldfinch,” he teased, folding his book against his chest with a gentle smile. 

“I’m considering just nixing it,” she agreed with a deep sigh, turning the cover to examine the thin black font. “It’s just so long.” 

“And so slow. It took me a month and a half to get through it because I kept leaving it to read other things.” 

With a laugh, Clarke flipped back to a page about a quarter of the way through where she’d written in a thick, flare pen, “Why has nothing happened yet?” 

For the rest of the bus ride, they compared the worst books they’d subjected their students to, along with their favorites. By the end of it, Clarke had a full sticky note of books that she needed to borrow or lend out to him. The conversation consumed her, warmed her to her core, and left her completely left of center by the time they arrived in front of the Mariott, where they would be spending their weekend. 

And, of course--her room was right next to Bellamy’s. 

Harper winked cheekily at her as she and Monty passed them for their room at the end of the hallway, and Clarke disappeared through the doorway to hide her blush. 

Apparently, she wasn’t as subtle as she thought. 

Clarke leaned against the door, taking in her small room, the clean bed, the little square TV, it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad either. 

Toeing off her shoes, she flopped onto the bed and flipped on the TV, the early start and the uncomfortable bus seats finally hitting her. 

They’d given the kids cash to buy dinner, meaning that she had nothing to do but turn her brain off for a little bit. 

Eventually, she dozed off, lulled to sleep by an old episode of Friends. 

Despite wearing jeans and lying on top of the blankets, she felt oddly refreshed when she woke up, until she realized that someone was knocking at the door. 

Expecting Bellamy or Harper, the sight of a red-eyed Hope Diyoza caught Clarke entirely off guard. 

“Sweetie…” She murmured, holding her arms out for the younger girl to step into. Hope held tightly onto Clarke’s torso, letting tears seep into her shoulder as her skinny body shook lightly. 

A prickle of worry ran up Clarke’s spine as her mind raced through all the possibilities of what could’ve happened. She knew it was a bad idea to let the kids go out on their own…

And now, something had happened. 

“He told me he loved me,” Hope choked out, muffled by the fabric of Clarke’s sweater, and it didn’t do much to unravel the pit in her stomach. 

“If something happened, you can tell me,” she said gently, running a hand down Hope’s arm, hoping that the gesture was some sort of comfort. 

There was a pause as Hope continued to cry softly, until eventually, she caught her breath, taking a sip from an offered water bottle. 

“Jordan, we went to homecoming together, and then he asked me to be his girlfriend. He told me he loved me and--and that we were going to be together,” she trailed off, wiping at her eyes as she caught herself from saying something she didn’t want to admit. But Clarke had an idea of where this was going, and she couldn’t help but feel relieved. Being a teenage girl who liked a boy was a universally terrible experience, but a normal one. This was a typical milestone, not an emergency. 

Another tear rolled down Hope’s cheek before she continued, “But then tonight, after dinner, he asked me to go for a walk. I didn’t think anything of it, so I thought we would get ice cream or something. Instead, we sat in a McDonald’s parking lot. He told me that he needed to focus on the game and that our relationship was distracting him,” another sob cut her off, a handful of tears falling again. “He just wants to be friends.” 

Ouch. 

Despite herself, Clarke winced as she smoothed down her student’s hair, whispering reassurances that there would be other boys and it wouldn’t always hurt like this. She’d been here once, heartbroken and young, convinced something was wrong with her, that she would never find someone else again. The first time always hurts the most. 

“I’m just so embarrassed. I don’t know how I’m supposed to go back and tell my friends after I went on and on about how amazing he is,” Hope sighed, seemingly calm for the first time since she walked into the room. 

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, you liked a boy, and you gave it your best try. It’s a brave thing to put yourself out there. Not everyone can do it,” Clarke soothed, knowing it was hypocritical advice considering her current situation but hoping it did something to ease her sorrow. “And yeah, it didn’t work out, and he wasn’t nice to you, but you learned something from it, right?”

Hope sighed like Clarke was the biggest idiot in the world, rolling her eyes and flopping back onto the bed. 

“You’re blonde, and you have big boobs! You don’t understand,” Hope groaned, rubbing her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. 

Holding back a laugh, Clarke smoothed down Hope’s hair and pushed forward with the positive messaging, throwing in a little body positivity for good measure. 

Eventually, the younger girl seemed significantly less upset than before, and with a Gatorade and a pack of overpriced minibar M&Ms in hand, she headed back to her room. 

Clarke fell back against her bed. All the relaxation from earlier was long gone. She should’ve known that it would have been short-lived on a trip with 80 teenagers. 

Her heart hurt for Hope, this would likely be the first of many heartbreaks, and truthfully, they never got easier. 

She stared at the wall, knowing that Bellamy was on the other side, knowing that she was one of those people who were too afraid of getting hurt to let herself an attempt at being happy. As much as she wanted to tell him the truth, to tell him how she felt after years of wondering and wishing and hoping, their relationship was so important to her. The risk felt so large, she could barely handle the weight of it. 

Another knock on the door shook Clarke out of her thoughts, or her thought spiral more aptly put. She wondered if Hope hadn’t been able to go back to tell her friends, whether she needed another round of comforting.

But instead of a tiny high school girl on the other side, she found Bellamy, holding a metal flask between his fingers. 

“The walls are thin,” he teased, flashing her a cheeky smile. “I figured you could use a drink.” 

It was as if he could read her mind sometimes. 

“Always a rebel, aren’t you?” She smiled in return, stepping back so that he could follow her into the room. 

Suddenly, the room felt impossibly small, and she didn’t know what to do with herself. Not when a damp haired, grey sweatpant wearing Bellamy was lounging in her desk chair with his bare feet propped up on her still made bed. 

He took a long sip from the flask, the column of his throat ticking as he swallowed, and Clarke couldn’t draw her eyes away from him. 

Her own sip helped soothe her nerves, the bitter sting of the tequila, sending a wave of warmth through her as she swallowed. 

They couldn’t drink too much, not when they had kids to supervise, kids who had already proven themselves to be unpredictable.

“C’mon,” she urged, waving for him to follow her out onto the narrow balcony, the fall air just north of cold. 

The old metal chairs were clustered close together, and they kept them that way as they settled side by side. 

“Take this. It’s freezing,” Bellamy said, shrugging off his zip up and draping it over her lap. 

The dark blue fabric smelled like him, it warmed her skin from the outside in, and she could help but wrap it around her shoulders. 

Her northern sensibilities told her that it was barely cold, let alone freezing, but she wasn’t complaining. 

Bellamy took another drink from the flask and handed it off to her, looking out at the dark sky, the stars barely visible through the city's lights. 

“These kids have their whole lives ahead of them,” he said, eyes still fixed on the skyline. “They could go to college here, make something of themselves, get apartments in the middle of the city.” 

And there it was, the darkness she sometimes saw in Bellamy, the glimmer of the smartest person she knew staring out at what could’ve been if he’d had the chance. 

It killed her that he felt that way, that he didn’t understand how special he was. 

“You have your whole life ahead of you too,” she said, reaching out to take Bellamy’s wrist, rubbing her thumb against his pulse point. “It’s not too late, you know…” 

He snorted, flashing her a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes as he watched her take her final sip. She knew he didn’t believe her, but it was the truth. Arkadia was full of comforts, of people who knew every innate detail about your life, who always asked about your day and waited to hear the answer, but that comfort could feel suffocating in the right context. 

“It isn’t,” she insisted, turning in her chair to face him. “You could get a master's in anything you wanted, travel, see the world.” 

Clarke was a cat at heart, a homebody. She didn’t like to stray from what she knew. Boston had given her nothing but emptiness, and after years of being dragged around by her mom, the idea of wandering had never appealed to her. But traveling with Bellamy didn’t feel like wandering. The potential of it felt more like exploration. 

She’d known it since the moment she’d seen him again, since he took her hand, his fingers wrapped around hers felt like home. 

With the words, she’d said to Hope echoing in her mind, and the slight buzz from a few sips of liquor, she found herself saying, “there’s so much out there for us to see.” 

Her words were followed by the world’s most deafening silence as Bellamy’s chin tilted, like he was trying to wrap his head around what she’d said. 

“Us?” he asked, hesitating on the single, heavy syllable. 

It was the final push she needed, the risk that she’d been avoiding since she was barely old enough to understand her feelings for Bellamy. What she felt for him, the potential of what this could be, it was worth all the fall out in the world. 

He’d given her an out, but she’d spent her entire life beating around the bush, and it was time to be brave. 

It was now or never. 

“I didn’t come back to Arkadia for my parents’ house or to teach at my old high school or to see everyone again even though it was an added bonus--” she rambled, suddenly unable to corral her thoughts, her mouth moving with permission from her brain. 

“Clarke,” Bellamy interrupted, rough, edging on something that sounded almost desperate, and she knew it wasn’t fair to keep dragging this on. 

“I came back to Arkadia for you,” Clarke said, admitting something that she hadn’t even allowed herself to think before this moment. “It was always you.” 

***

It felt like every moment that led up to that sentence was flashing before Bellamy’s eyes, all the little instances where he’d fallen a little more in love with Clarke. 

He was so overwhelmed, he didn’t know what to say. Part of him was worried that he might start to cry if he didn’t get a hold of himself. 

Never in a million years did he think this moment would come, let alone in rusty outdoor chairs while chaperoning a high school field trip.   
He knew he’d been silent for entirely too long, that she probably thought that he was trying to reject her. But there weren’t words for what he wanted to say, for the weight of the emotions he was feeling. 

“I love you,” he said, deciding that it was the only way for him to truly show her what this meant to him. 

And now Clarke was the one who looked stunned, a small smile slowly taking over her face until it morphed into a surprised giggle, entirely out of character for Clarke, but it made Bellamy’s heart skip a beat. 

“Really?” she whispered, running her thumb over her bottom lip. 

He nodded, lacing their fingers together and bringing their joined hands to press a kiss to her knuckles. 

“Really,” he murmured against her skin, drawing her hand to his chest, pulling her in until they were only a breath apart, with Clarke standing between his legs. 

With her free hand, she reached out to cup his jaw, rubbing her thumb against his cheekbone, and when he caught her eyes, saw the soft glimmer of tears, ‘I love you’ didn’t feel like enough anymore. 

Laced in all their shared loss, in all the stolen glances and would beens, was a future, one that held possibilities beyond what Bellamy had ever let himself imagine. 

And when he kissed her, held her close, tried to funnel every emotion he was feeling into the place where their lips touched, it felt like a new chapter to a story. A story that had started with a girl who’d stood on his front porch and demanded to be best friends with his little sister. 

If only he’d been able to tell back then how important that girl would become to him, that she would one day be not only his sister's best friend but also, the love of his life. 

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all know I love a small town story, I hope you liked this one! I really enjoyed it and it was fun to explore the more nostalgic and emotional side! 
> 
> Thank you all for your continued love and support, it's my lifeblood and it means an incredible amount to me. In all the ways this year has been hard, your comments and seeing y'all read these have been such a piece of joy. I love you all and appreciate you. It means so much to know that these stories mean something to some of you too. 
> 
> We are still accepting prompts for t100writersforBLM and you can find all information on our caard (hopefully that link works, if all info is linked on our socials (insta/twitter/tumblr)!! It is such an amazing cause and a great way to give back during this season of charity. 
> 
> Till next time my babes <3 stay safe, stay well, stay blessed, I love you!


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